HERC And MORIARTY Have Seen JUSTICE LEAGUE 1.1!!

Justice League 1.1 FAQ

What’s it called?

Who’s responsible?

We’re not sure who authored the initial installments, but Stan Berkowitz and Rich Fogel are credited as series story editors.

Not superstar animation scribe Paul Dini?

Dini, vet of many a recent animated DC franchise, is sadly not in the mix this time around.

When does it air?

The first three episodes air back-to-back Saturday on the Cartoon Network, starting at 7 p.m. Future installments of “Justice League” will air full-screen on Monday and Friday nights – but the Sunday-night repeats will be shown in widescreen.

Debut: DC Comics' greatest superheroes - some of whom saved the world many a Saturday morning in the Super Friends cartoons of the '70s and '80s - fight evil as the Justice League in this sophisticated, action-packed series. In tonight's 90-minute opener, which examines the group's origins, a disarmament treaty leaves Superman as Earth's primary protector. But when a mysterious meteor shower heralds an alien invasion that he alone can't stop, he calls on Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Hawkgirl and J'onn J'onzz the Martian Manhunter, a telepathic shape-shifting hero who holds the key to understanding the aliens. Voices...Batman: Kevin Conroy. Superman: George Newbern.

So as the series begins, there is no Justice League?

No. And there won’t be until the end of the series’ third episode.

Do the world’s superheroes even know each other?

Most at least know of each other. The only superheroes unknown to the others are Diana, who leaves Thymescera for the first time ever in episode two, and J’onn, a 1,000-year-old stranger new to Earth. Interestingly, I don’t recall any of the characters employing the terms “Wonder Woman” or “Martian Manhunter.”

Tim Daly’s not voicing Superman? How’s the new guy?

Strange. It’s hard to get used to Superman’s voice being so much higher than Batman’s.

Is Clark married to Lois?

We don’t even learn if Clark knows Lois. We do learn, however, that the so-called Man of Steel sleeps alone.

Is Green Lantern a free agent (like Alan Scott or Kyle Rayner) or is he working for a bunch of little blue guys on Planet Oa?

The only clue on this: when we first meet him, GL says he just got back from dealing with “an uprising on Rigel 9.”

Is GL vulnerable to wood or the color yellow?

He doesn’t appear to be good with yellow.

Do Superman, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman make fun of Hawkgirl because Hawkgirl’s only power is flight?

Hawkgirl goes unmocked, largely because she is also highly adept at destroying heavily armored spacecraft by smacking them with her mace. (And, hey, at least her big power isn't fish-telepathy.)

What’s the big bad like?

Like production design in search of a character. Enormous meteors crash into Metropolis, from which emerge skyscraper-sized tripedal machines spewing death rays. While all of this certainly evokes “War of the Worlds,” the look of these war machines would seem to be heavily influenced also by Paul Verhoeven’s “Starship Troopers” aliens.

Death rays? Is this why half the globe atop the Daily Planet is missing?

It is.

How’s it start?

There’s a 3.5-minute teaser depicting an American astronaut named J. Carter (get it? get it?) stumbling upon an enormous Martian edifice buried deep beneath the planet’s surface. The story then jumps to two years later at a WayneTech substation in Metropolis.

So which superhero do we meet first?

Bruce Wayne, back in the batsuit. Followed closely by the Man of Steel. Who turns out to be of little use at first.

What’s the Batman/Superman relationship like? Does Clark treat Bruce like a vigilante interloper?

No, but they do behave a little condescendingly toward one another. At the end of their first scene together, Batman doesn’t seem thrilled when Superman offers him a Jimmy Olsen signal watch, but world’s greatest detective isn’t arrogant enough throw the device away. When Superman says he’s got to go, Bats asks: “Another key to the city?”

Who do we meet next?

The Flash has a cameo in the first episode doing an interview with a video journalist named Snapper Carr (!). Wonder Woman is also glimpsed in episode one. J’onn is the first to join Bruce and Clark, toward the end of the first half-hour. Green Lantern and Hawkgirl don’t appear at all until episode two.

When does Diana first slap on the tiara?

Beginning of the second episode.

How’s the invisible plane look?

Really invisible. (There doesn’t seem to be one.)

How do all the superheroes converge?

They receive a telepathic summons from J’onn.

What’s good?

The speed (when Superman and the Batplane are in the air, it really feels like they’re burning through the machs). The satellite HQ. The fact that Hawkgirl seems to be Hawkman in hotpants. The way J’onn disables the aliens by thrusting his hands through their chests. The way the animators let Diana tower over most of the boy leaguers. The happy absence of SuperMarv. Were I still 10 and “Justice League” airing Saturday mornings, I think I’d be pretty excited about it.

What’s not so good?

I’m not 10 and “Justice League” airs on school nights. If you’re looking for the brainy and propulsive storytelling that’s categorized the JLA comic book since Grant Morrison revitalized it a few years ago, seek elsewhere. This series, if one is to judge by its first three episodes, would benefit mightily from leavening the series’ many fight scenes with meatier characterization. The villains (at least in this first installment) are personality-free. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are two-dimensional at best, and the other leaguers don’t even fare that well. The Flash inherits Plastic Man's role as class clown, but his jokes are appallingly rudimentary.

Well, is the three-part opener at least as good as that recent “Batman Beyond” two-parter with the near-future Justice League?

Not nearly. But the season is young. Lex Luthor, Solomon Grundy, Vandal Savage, Sgt. Rock, Blackhawk and Steve Trevor lurk in the wings …

Herc’s rating for “Justice League” 1.1-1.3?

**1/2

The Hercules T. Strong Rating System:

***** better than we deserve

**** better than most motion pictures

*** actually worth your valuable time

** as horrible as most stuff on TV

* makes you quietly pray for bulletins

I warn you not to defy me!! Mmm!! Cookies!!

To order coffee mugs and boxer shorts adorned with the image of a green, handicapable “Buffy” fanatic, click here.

I regret that I don't have time to write a full review of this, but I wanted to add a few thoughts before the thing airs tonight. Like Herc, I sorely missed the participation of Paul Dini on this show. If there's ever been a debate about how the work was divided between Dini and Timm, this trio of episodes should settle it once and for all. The show looks great (for the most part), but it's a rough ride in terms of writing. I thought the smart-aleck Flash was annoying, and I get pretty much nothing from Hawkgirl and Green Lantern. There are some very strange choices made in terms of how the characters are portrayed, too. Superman is seen at home in bed... and he's dressed as Superman. It's like Clark Kent doesn't exist. Based on my conversations with people around the show, it seems that Timm doesn't want to deal with the lives of these characters in any way except during the time when they are superheroes. Don't expect there to be any real attempt made at defining them as people. They are big symbolic action heroes, and little else.

The three episode arc really is ripped off wholesale from WAR OF THE WORLDS, and I found that frustrating. There's little of interest going on, and the aliens are a sort of vague menace with no one central character of interest for the Justice League to fight. It's surprisingly dark imagery in places, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the show made people uncomfortable on this side of September 11th. That adult tone could pay off if the writing gets better as the series progresses, but there are things that indicate that might not be the case.

There's the dialogue, for example. Lord God, there's the dialogue. There's an exchange near the end of the show that should set off an entire nation of geeks on an eye-rolling frenzy of exasperation that could register on the richter scale. It's after everything's been settled and the group of heroes finds themselves on a space station owned by Wayne Industries. Superman is the one who points out that they managed to defeat the alien invasion by working together, rather than alone.

"You mean like a bunch of... super friends?" Flash asks.

"More like... a Justice League," replies Superman.

I didn't hear what came next because I was busy being ill. If that's the level of wit we have to look forward to with this show, then I may have to forgo the rock 'em sock 'em action. Color me spoiled, but the animated BATMAN and SUPERMAN shows we've seen over the last ten years set the bar very high for this sort of endeavor, and having many of the same people involved only raises expecations even more. At this point, based on these three episodes, I would call this a mild disappointment, a well-animated miss. I'm sure you'll have plenty to say yourselves after the show airs, and I look forward to the debate in the Talk Backs below.

Thanks for posting an article I could do a quick piggy-back on, Herc. I agree with your **1/2, and I bow to your superior comic book collection, as always.

Uhh Ahem... sorry about that last post. See! It&#39;s really PAUL DINI who provides the magic to the Batman, Superman, and Batman Beyond shows. Take him out of the equation, and you get this tripe. I unfortunately knew this wasn&#39;t going to be all that great a few months back. My friend does some of the tweening for the show and conveyed to me that it just isn&#39;t up to those other show&#39;s standards. He warned be about Supe&#39;s new voice too. Don&#39;t get me wrong, I&#39;ll watch it, but I have a feeling it&#39;ll be disappointing. Oh well.

Why is everyone always pissing on Aquaman i mean sure he can talk to fish but the encreased strenght the harpoon the senses his radar type sense and the fact that he can mind rape damn near anyone means hawkgirl is not as good and for christ sake which ass said hey lets put hawkgirl in.

Brilliant storytelling and hella funny. You can&#39;t go wrong with Beetle & Booster, and Guy Gardner bitchslaps all other GL&#39;s (&#39;cept G&#39;Nort, of coursearooni). Oh well, I&#39;ll watch anyway, when and if we ever get this in Canada.

I definatley believe that it was Paul Dini&#39;s writing that made all the previous series as great as they were. Sure art direction is important, but pretty pictures do not tell much of a story. Dini&#39;s writing was intelligent, dark, witty, and handled characters who were "super-heroes" like they were real people---flawed. I think it is probably a mistake to ignore the stories of the last few series as well.....such as the fantastic "Worlds Finest" teamup with Supes and Bats, and my favorite Superman episode where Superman masquerades as Batman to find a missing Bruce Wayne. We&#39;ve even seen a few of these characters in guest roles on Superman. I wonder if they are not allowed to refer to those incidents?? Dosent make sense tho, does it? Anyway....I just want them to make more Batman Beyond, but that is a dream in and of itself. I&#39;m just glad I have the unedited ROTJ version. --Back to Topic-- I&#39;m sure this series will be alot better than most of the Saturday morning CRAP we have to sit thru.....come to think of it, I don&#39;t sit thru it anymore....and I am gald I can find it on the same channel as Samauri Jack, Adult Swim, PPGirls, Dexter, and others. Kudos to Cartoon Network for pooling such great programing. Now if we could just drop about 40 hours of Scooby Doo a week we&#39;d be fine.

I knoiw Clancy Brown is coming back to v/o Lex Luthor, which should be interesting to see how his debates with Newburn as Supes does. I also know that Simon Stagg, his daughter and her no account, periodic table of a boyfriend, Metamorpho, are due for an appearance. Snapper Carr, major flashback. J.Carter? I don&#39;t get it! Why not give him some dopey name like Mike Mercury or Barry Barsoom? As for a Supes/=WW= romantic entanglement, remember that in the future JLU, he hangs pretty closely with Scott Free&#39;s ex, Big Barda. Something about strong "willed" women, I guess.

I remember enjoying the Superfriends as a kid, and I&#39;ve enjoyed the way that many of the DC characters have been reworked in the past few years. Fox and Cartoon Network have done a great job in making these series more than just a children&#39;s cartoon, but something with some grit. Let&#39;s hope they can repeat that success with Justice League.
Now, as a side note: For all those who have never seen it before, I would highly recommend checking out the Superfriends section at Seanbaby.com. And that&#39;s all I have to say about that.

It may get better as the season progresses and the characters are all defined. We can all hope!
As for J. Carter, I assume that is a reference to John Carter of Mars in the Edgar Rice Burroughs books (where Mars is called Barsoom).
And Fox gets no credit for the improvement in the DC heroes in the past decade. That was the WB&#39;s doing. Credit where credit is due.

Okay, not up to our stratospheric expectations without Dini, but STILL gonna be cool. Can&#39;t wait to see the League in action, especially after Cartoon Network&#39;s SUPERFRIENDS marathon gave me a reminder of what I used to get as a kid. Empty yourselves of desire, grasshoppers, and experience anew! I have a feeling it will still be good stuff.

Yer lookin&#39; at an aging geek who&#39;s been WAITING for the day to cleanse the gawdawful taste of SuperFriends from his palette, and Herc, you are NOT gonna funk this one up for me... I&#39;ll repost when I finish tonight&#39;s ep (some of us are unwilling to blow WB execs), but I have faith in Bruce Timm... You DO remember him, don&#39;t you? Helped Heap Big Chief Mucky-Muck Dini on a rinky-dink show called Batman Beyond, which didn&#39;t suck too hard, as I recall... Oh yeah, don&#39;t forget the new Dexters tomorrow! Gee, I guess satellife doesn&#39;t blow dead bear after all! Ghost! ~pS~

Have to disagree on this on Herc,,,I caught the opener LOVED it - watching it again right now....
Are you and Paul Dini secret lovers or something...Think your giving him more credit than he is do.
If your a friend of Superfriends DONT MISS THIS - I&#39;m sure they are playing it all weekend. Herc, you go get laid, i think you could use it..
Later...Manta

The voices will take a little getting used to but I enjoyed it. One other thing, Wonder Woman doesn&#39;t fly does she? Did I miss something? She was flying all over the place but I have never seen her fly before. Is this something they did for this series or has she been flying for awhile?

I just finished watching the JL opener, and I found it fantastic. Certainly there are areas in which I feel it needs some work (better dialogue, more characterization), but not everything comes together in a pilot/premiere. Give it some time. And I&#39;m very disappointed in this review. For instance, the whole storyline was hardly a rip-off of War of the Worlds. Yes, it was clearly trying to evoke some of the same imagery, and even included the tongue-in-cheek General Wells. However, it also featured ancient enemies of the Martians, who are pale, telepathic, warlike shapeshifters. The pilot even included the capture of everyone but Batman, presumed dead, who shows up at the end and saves the team. Seems to me that they were trying to take the Pale Martians, combine them with the idea of War of the Worlds, and create a new spin. Not terribly original, admittedly, but neither do I think the criticism of Herc and Moriarty are deserved here. Half of the much-vaunted Morrison&#39;s stories involved spectacularly characterized villains, but the other half included large-scale, non-person specific threats (Mageddon, Starro, etc.). I thought that as a series opener, intended to reintroduce these characters to the viewing audience as a whole, the story was very well done. Some of the writing was clever, and I actually rather enjoyed the little jab at the "Superfriends." And on one last note, are you sure the joke is that J. Carter goes to Mars? Because he is continually referred to as "J. (or Jay) Alan Carter." The Mars reference makes sense, but so does the clear reference to JAY Garrick, ALAN Scott, and CARTER Hall; the Golden Age Flash, GL, and Hawkman who were the general leaders of the Justice Society. By the way--I guess Herc wouldn&#39;t have been privy to the previews, but it&#39;s pretty clear this Stewart works for the Guardians, as both they and Manhunters appear in the commercials for the next episode.

Enjoyed: The dynamic between Supes and Bats, The creepy organic look of the invaders, Disliked: The stiffness of the animation for the most part, Jon Stewart( and his creepy green eyes ), Wonder Woman ... FLYING ("What the ... ?"), The fact that the show ended 15 minutes early with no behind-the-scenes (a&#39;la Samurai Jack&#39;s premiere ), teasers or even a " Next Week on Justice League ...". Still, you know we&#39;ll all be watching every week.

All right, after looking like a total fool for the premature post, lemme get a few things straight right off the bat (ugh...) Tagline: JL is a diamond in the rough. Sure, the writing wasn&#39;t as good as I&#39;d hoped, though they didn&#39;t include as many cliches and unnecessary expositions as is normally found in these toons... The CGI at the beginning rocked, and anyone who sez otherwise is a mere shell of a fanboy. Natch, it was designed by Timm, so it&#39;s gotta be good... Supes: Gotta get laid. By a woman. Preferably Lois, much as I hate that bitch... Bats: Every bit the asshole he was in TAS and BB. That&#39;s a GOOD thing... WW: Nice cleavage. That Ice Princess persona should develop into an Ice Queen soon... Flash: Every bit the asshole he was before. That&#39;s a BAD thing... MM: Hoo-ha! Now if we can just get HIM on MIB2... Hawkgirl: Down, boy, down! Damned heterosexuality!... Overall: Funk you and you **1/2, boys! JL wasn&#39;t the best, but it will get better! Try ***1/2... Fanboy OUT! ~pS~

Perfect description, PencilSharp--a diamond in the rough. And I agree with your rating of the show. And for the Chainsaw--while a flying Wonder Woman is new to animation, she&#39;s always flown in the comics. The invisible jet was something specifically created for her in the Superfriends to give her something a little gimmicky.

Okay, well this was pretty rudimentary. Nonetheless here are my likes and dislikes if anyone cares. LIKES: 1) Green Lantern. I hated that they used John Stewart when the vastly more interesting Kyle Rayner appeared in the animated Superman. I was all set to call this pure Animated Affirmative Action bull pulled by the man without a vision Bruce Timm. Well, it probably is just tokenism, but I actually LIKE the way GL is handled. Mori, you didn&#39;t get anything from him? His bit with Wonder Woman for being a novice didn&#39;t work for you? No it wasn&#39;t taken very far, but I like it for what it was. I think GL worked because they gave him Superman&#39;s authority and characterization(at Superman&#39;s expense though). 2) The Flash and GL. Well, I too cringed at that awful crap at the end. Flash says the JL sounds corny, then does a 180 and in his very next line says he&#39;ll join? Ug. Still, the little bit between him and GL was very good. Arrogant junior paired with more seasoned senior man, a good combination. Not put to its best use, and probably not better than if they&#39;d matched Wally West and Kyle, but it has possibilities nonetheless. 3) Can we knight Kevin Conroy already? The fact that he isn&#39;t playing Batman in a live action version of the Caped Crusader is just sick at this point. 4) Those brief glimpses of the Legion of Doom during the commercials. Wish they&#39;d been in the episode. DISLIKES: 1) I don&#39;t know where the hell Superman was, but the George Banks&#39;s son-in-law voiced guy was not him. Superman was actually the most ineffectual member of the team! And frankly, they pirated his characterization to make GL better. They should have just had a Green Lantern and Flash show. 2) The writing was bland, but the animation...my god, cartoon network must have a net budget of $00.04 because this looked as flat as the 70&#39;s Super Friends! I thought the WB was frugal, but compared to this they were practically throwing the money at the animators! 3) The music was just, um, forgettable. I don&#39;t even remember the main theme and it was on just minutes ago! Shirley Walker, WE NEED YOU! COME BACK, YOU GODDESS OF THE BATON, PLEASE!!! 4) Did I mention how crappy the animation looked? Well I&#39;m saying it again. Samurai Jack looks more cinematic than this, and Jack is flatter than Alyson Hannigan&#39;s singing! 5) Characterization is EVERYTHING! If Bruce Timm thinks that the super heros&#39; personal lives are unimportant to the show than he&#39;s an absolute idiot. 6) Why doesn&#39;t this air on Saturday mornings? This is for kids. They&#39;re the ones who&#39;ll appreciate it, not us jaded opinionated long time followers. I feel like a dope for watching, and Monday I may just skip. Mori is right, this thing has no wit or intelligence, THIS IS THE STUFF THE TICK WAS SPOOFING! It&#39;s like watching a Star Trek: The Next Generation movie after seeing Galaxy Quest, it just doesn&#39;t work anymore.

The Dark Knight&#39;s thoughts: a) the animation was poor in the beginning, but improved somewhat in the second and third acts. b) Superman&#39;s new voice will take some getting used to, but the Flash&#39;s "kiddie" intonation is downright annoying c) the story and dialogue was weak, and did not have the peaks an epic story like this should have - Batman&#39;s reappearance was very anticlimactic, for example. d) The character design is not as crisp as what has come before, and I thought both Bats and Supes were a noticable step down. e) I have the nagging feeling that this series is Warner&#39;s going to the well one too many times. f) overall, I have to agree with the **1/2, and will only watch future episodes when my busy crime fighting schedule permits. Dark Knight out...

...besides Superman&#39;s voic, which I can get used to (only because I have to) is the lack of Shirley Walker&#39;s music. 15 min. into the show, and I was like "this score sucks." I loved Shirley Walker&#39;s music in Batman:TAS.

I&#39;m surprised this caught so many people by surprise. I don&#39;t read the JLA comics regularly, or even that often anymore, but even I knew she could fly. Don&#39;t know when the invisible jet came in, but did Linda Carter fly one in the 70&#39;s live action show? I could have sworn she did at least once(a model of course).

Long time lurker, first time yadda yadda yadda... anyway, I dug the premiere muchly. I&#39;m kinda hoping they keep referring to WW as &#39;Diana&#39;... it&#39;ll be interesting to see when/if they start calling her Wonder Woman. Supes&#39; voice was kinda grating, but it grew on me after a while, and it was quite funny to see him get shot every five minutes or so. Kevin Conroy&#39;s Batman still gives me shivers due to how fitting his portrayal is... and it was good to see the Dark Knight use a flashlight. Martian Manhunter reminded me why I liked the character in the 80&#39;s without reading a single DC comic book... he&#39;s just that damn cool. GL was alright; I haven&#39;t read any of John Stewart&#39;s exploits, but he seemed like a passable take on the whole GL mythos... as for Hawkgirl, she was just there, which isn&#39;t a bad thing due to how many characters they had to deal with, so it&#39;s a minor gripe. And, I think I&#39;m the only one that liked the Flash, but I know if I was super-fast, I&#39;d be an annoying prick too. All in all, I was hoping the damn thing would be at least 15 minutes longer, but oh well... at least there&#39;s more episodes on the way. They&#39;ve got some time to get things down pat.

Oh god was this bad. Sometimes I forget how forgiving fanboys can be when one of their patron saints are involved. They are unable to admit to themselves when something made by someone they love is bad. We saw this with Crusade. If it was made by anybody but JMS they would have called it laughably bad and painfully, amateurish and mediocre. If it&#39;s in anyway associated with the geek pantheon(JMS, Dini, Smith, Whedon..) no one will let it be bad. It can&#39;t be! That would throw my whole world upside down! How dare you say it was bad!
And here we see it again with JL. Witness the cries of &#39;give it a chance! It will get better!&#39; Well guess what, unlike you my goal isn&#39;t to maintain the infallibility of my fandom heroes(Timm). My goal in watching this was to be entertained. I wasn&#39;t. Moriarty and Herc were too kind. This was so cliched and mediocre, words fail me.
Witness the cries of &#39;If you don&#39;t like it, you&#39;re not a true fan!&#39; Oh christ, spare me. That&#39;s really what I care about. Because I love the DC super-seven, and think that this was a sad attempt at portraying them, I&#39;m not a real fan. Would you say the same about the hilarious live action Justice League?
If they billed this show as just a kid&#39;s cartoon, fine. It was a reasonable kid&#39;s cartoon. Stupid mindless fun for anyone who still believes in Santa Claus. But they attempt was to make it an intelligent, character driven and original adult oriented animated series that would still be fun for all age. When I watch something, I tend to judge entertainment by &#39;did it accomplish what it set out to do&#39;?
Sadly, they were far from it.
It&#39;s interesting on how many layers they actually failed. From the hackneyed cliched plot, to the dialogue that makes you cringe and hope no one else heard that, to the voice work, and the dull and uninspiring animation. Gone is the classic and iconic art of the Batman and Superman series, that truly took us into another world. Instead, they try to make it the real world, which unfortunately draws attention to the unbelievability of the plots and the characters.
I don&#39;t think there can be any further argument about what Dini and Walker contributed to the show. I think you can say with confidence that they made BTAS and STAS great. Without them, we&#39;d have this....

I&#39;m no particular defender of Bruce Timm, though I would point out that there are many more variables than the presence, or lack thereof, of Paul Dini. But more than that, defending the show isn&#39;t mindless fanboyism. The difference between this and the live action version is that even though there are flaws in this animated series, I see a lot of potential. On the other hand, the live action stuff hurt to watch. So I guess I see a middle ground between rabid fanboyism that demands one defend JL at all costs, and the need to completely swing to the other pole and state that just because it didn&#39;t live up to expectations it is complete crap. What a ridiculous way to think.

Agree with Herc and Mori that the opener was a letdown. Out of the 75 minute premiere (90 minutes? Not what I saw), at least half the running time was explosions. Listen, I&#39;m a geek, but even I could use a refresher course on the heroes, their powers, etc. I would have opened with quick scenes of the Flash stopping bank robbers, Green Lantern diverting a meteor, that sort of thing -- instead everybody just sort of shows up, and as an audience we&#39;re supposed to get interested in a half-dozen characters who&#39;ve been figuratively dumped on our doorsteps. Also, what&#39;s with making Wonder Woman the rookie? Wonder Woman? She&#39;s one of the Big Three, with Supes and Batman! Ah well -- I&#39;m still watching the next few episodes, at least until the Legion of Doom shows up.

Well, I was disappointed. The dialogue seemed forced at times, and the writing wasn&#39;t smart in spots. One example that screams to mind is near the end when the alien leader comes down to take J&#39;onn. Superman is struggling against his restraints to try to save J&#39;onn...why didn&#39;t Superman use his heat vision? He used it just a few minutes later (after everything was *over*) to free himself...
For those who hadn&#39;t read the comics lately, the pilot movie was basically an adaptation of the first four issues of the current JLA comic series written by Grant Morrison (came out back around 1995). If you haven&#39;t read those, I would highly suggest you pick up at least that 4 issue run. It is 100 times more enjoyable than what they did on the cartoon. The same basic story except very smartly written, cohesive and not forced at all.
A shining example again focuses on the end of the story. Similar to the cartoon, the entire League is captured except for Batman. In a short scene, the White Martians (the comic&#39;s version of the alien invaders) are talking about how they&#39;ve yet to find Batman&#39;s body. One of the White Martians coyly casts it aside saying "It doesn&#39;t matter...he&#39;s only human." Nearby, Superman is hearing this despite the pain being inflicted by the mental suggestion that kryptonite is nearby...and Supes just starts laughing. The White Martians ask what he&#39;s laughing at, and Supes (still laughing) just says, "You don&#39;t know Batman."
In my opinion, there were just so many things in the cartoon that could have been done better than they were. Hopefully future episodes of Justice League won&#39;t suffer from this. Maybe they&#39;re just working out the bugs at first. But to be honest, Burnette and Timm have been doing this since the early 90&#39;s...you would think by now it would be second nature; and all their other series have been so good. When you couple with the fact that they obviously used the aforementioned 4 issue Morrison story as source material...I just don&#39;t know...may be some signs of burn out. After all, they&#39;ve been at this for around 10 years now.

I&#39;d probably be fine with it, but it&#39;s a little too simplistic for me. Hell, though, when I was little, I was all OVER the Super Friends, which, in retrospect, is a bit silly. Since I&#39;m not sure what audience is the target for the show (I mean, it was rated TV Y7), I think their just shooting a little young for my tastes....but having dug the animated versions of Superman and Batman since the &#39;90&#39;s, and knowing there&#39;s definitely much of the same crew involved (sans Paul Dini, natch), it just seems at a loss for a tone to attain and then maintain. I&#39;ll keep an eye on it, hoping it clarifies it&#39;s mission statement.
e.

Ohk i sat, watched and actually enjoyed Justice league as te actioner, super team up as it is. There were some things i found rather blaaahh such as batmans costume. If they were going for a comic book look, they should have did a better job, but i will say a much better costume than in the B&R series (My opinion) Kyle <forget his last name> Green Latern would have been a MUCH better choice than the stiff guy on the show, mainly for the fact that i read the first few ish&#39;s of the revamped JLA and Flash/Kyle really had a repoire going that could have went over well on the show. Wonder Woman isn&#39;t even called wonder woman...i find that cute. But i guess she needs a codename no? the funniest was when all the super powers started showin up, fighting the aliens and batman just stood there. My nephews wanted to know why Batman had no powers and i said "Don&#39;t worry you&#39;ll see" And i&#39;ll be damned if he didn&#39;t save the day. Too funny. But this was the pilot, the start of all things and if it piques interest to get people to come back and watch the new shows and its done its job. I for one will check out the next few eps just to se how this carries out. (and i agree with most Paul dini should have been involved, he needed to be involved because the dialogue was atrocious to say the least in some areas)

Excellent to look at, not so good to listen to. The Flash a flippant smart-ass and GL as serious? C&#39;mon. The Flash is a cop, assuming it&#39;s Barry Allen.
This points out the weakness in treating the characters as costumes, as was suggested was the case in Herc&#39;s review. If they&#39;re going to market this at 9:30 at night for the adults, we need to see some real people up there.
Mark Waid has been showing us how to do this kind of story for the past few years, would it be so bad to take a few queues from him? Historical context in characterization, again for us adults (although I did not get the John Carter reference...), would be nice too.

And in the immortal words of one of animation&#39;s greatest icons, I have this to say about JUSTICE LEAGUE:
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH! This sucks! Turn it off, Butthead! Turn it off!"
Where do I start? First off, Superman looks hideous (his constantly misshapen S-shield, his age line-riddled face) and acts too much like Dudley Do-Right for his own good. The constant "peace and justice" blather got on my nerves. The synth-rock soundtrack was morbidly out of place; there should have been a big symphonic score going on here. And while the War of the Worlds tripods looked great (and conviced me once and for all that the tripods could indeed work in a WOTW film set in the present day), they didn&#39;t belong here at all. I kept expecting Richard Burton, Justin Heyward, the Fighting Machine, and Dave Essex to start wailing "OOOOOOOLAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" and singing "Forever Autumn." And the synth-rock score made the feeling even worse; it sounded like something Jeff Wayne would have slapped together.
And then there&#39;s Michael Rosenbaum as the Flash. Not only does this guy seem to be a hypocritical jerk (he praised Smallville for ditching the flying and costume bcause "I didn&#39;t want to do some superhero thing" and then he turns around and does this show), but he also seems to want to be the white Chris Tucker. But unlike Rosenbaum, Chris Tucker is actually funny, and so the Flash comes off as an annoying motormouth. And Susan Eisenberg as Wonder Woman...can we say, "no presence"? This is supposed to be an Amazonian princess, and yet she sounds like a Britney Spears impersonator, which doesn&#39;t do the "cowards and warriors" rants any favors. Heck, they might as well have cast Britney Spears to play WW. At least then we&#39;d have some dorky musical numbers to laugh at. As for Phil LaMarr&#39;s Green lantern and Carl Lumbly&#39;s Martian Manhunter, could we PLEASE get these guys a good show? These are the only characters that remotely jumped out at me. Also, I was indifferent to Batman and Hawkgirl.
And last but not least, the story was SOOOOOOOOO predictable. You knew from the moment that Carter guy started addressing the UN that he was either an alien or under alien control. You knew from the instant Batman got trapped behind the membrane that nothing had happened to him. You knew that the "Superman and Hawkgirl hanging upside down" bit was a setup. Super Friends, in all its various incarnations and for all its goofiness, was infinitely more exciting than this. If I had any lingering doubts about Timm and company going the way of John Byrne, this dispelled those doubts big-time.
Oh, well, at least there&#39;s The Tick. Now THAT&#39;s a superhero TV show. And there&#39;s still Super Friends on Boomerang. So at least it&#39;s not a total loss.

These AICN reviewers have sticks up their butts. JLA is supposed to be about action, not deep characterization. It&#39;s about cities under siege, and super-heroes kicking ass and taking names. I&#39;ve been waiting my whole life for this show. Instead of nit-picking it to death, kick back and enjoy for crying out loud!

Madeja look, you mooks. Sheesh, lotta fanboys-who-would-be-critics here who obviously didn&#39;t read-up on pre-series gossip. This is kiddie fare, folks, the kind the network suits buy. If you&#39;re looking for deep characterization in the middle of an interplanetary war, look elsewhere. I have to agree the art was a little too Hanna Barbara-ish for me; Superman looks too stiff but Batman was pretty darn cool. I watched this with a 6 year old who loved it, so I come into it knowing it was made for kids like him. The preview of Monday&#39;s show teases us with Green Lantern revelations, so maybe more character-driven stuff will pop up once in a while. Watch it for fun, which means without your Grant Morrison lexicon in-hand.

I didn&#39;t get very far in this show before realizing that the only fun thing about it was seeing these characters on screen. Terribly unoriginal--one cliche after the next, borrowing from everything from War of the Worlds to Empire Strikes Back to Starship Troopers. Bad, bad dialogue, self-conscious attempts throughout to make Superman dopey and inexplicably weak, self-conscious attempts to boost the competence and power of the female and non-white heroes...
...and Superman&#39;s voice. BAD! BAD! BAD!

I thought this show was excellent. First of all, the animation, I can&#39;t believe you guys say it wasn&#39;t good. Have you not seen any of the other cartoons that have been on CN? Sure, Superman&#39;s logo was a little messed up in some of the shots, but, so what? Does it really matter? And it&#39;s about time GL, Flash, and MM get to be on a cartoon regularly. Yeah, the characterization may have been a little low, but it&#39;s just a pilot, you shouldn&#39;t judge that as the way it will be for the rest of the episodes. And I was so glad Aquaman was not there. His powers are useless. Of course, we still unfortunately had Hawkgirl, who is also useless, as her power is something almost everyone can do, but at least getting rid of Aquaman is a step in the right direction.
One more thing, why would they make a tv show in widescreen? Isn&#39;t the whole point of widescreen to allow you to see all of the image of a movie because they are formatted for a movie screen?

I thought the show was pretty good. There were some crappy parts, tho. Green Lantern, Hawkwoman, Batman, and Martian Manhunter were cold and stiff as hell. The only chars with emotion were Superman and the Flash. The voices were pretty bad, too. But, I like Phil LaMar as GL. However, this wasn&#39;t much of an origin series. Batman, Superman (but everyone should know their origins, I guess), GL, and the Flash just showed up and started beating up aliens. The only real origins were for Wonder Woman and Manhunter. It doesn&#39;t seem like there&#39;s gonna be much inner conflict, besides John Stewart getting pissed at everyone for being rookies or not doing teamwork. The animation seemed a little off somehow, but I really dug Martian Manhunter&#39;s phasing thingie, and the Flash&#39;s water running and wall running. I thought they were the coolest chars. Unfortunately, I guess this incarnation of the JL won&#39;t be true to the comics, but what the hell am I complaining about. This isn&#39;t a big drama on Fox or something, this is a cartoon show for little kids on Cartoon Network. So I&#39;m not really pissed or excited about the treatment. If I was 7, I&#39;d be going nuts over this, running around the house quoting the Flash&#39;s corny jokes.

During the last half hour, from the last battle in Metropolis smog factory to the very end of the show, the soundtrack is a direct manipulation of Gustav Holst&#39;s "The Planets" Suite, specifically the movement called "Saturn: The Bringer of Old Age"! It was so obviously ripped off it was sickening. Not just an inspiration or influence, but pure plagarism! The soundtrack composers should be at the very least ashamed and apologise, or at the very worst, sued by Holst&#39;s estate.

And KingKrypton? Jesus, man, it&#39;s a friggin CARTOON. Made for little kids with GI Joe toys stuffed in their Super Mario lunchboxes who bring their dad&#39;s briefcases to show and tell. It&#39;s kind of sad to see a grown man (I assume) whining about things like the soundtrack and the S on Superman&#39;s chest. Calm down.

Thank you for taking the high ground, but frankly what the heck is your point? The animated Batman was "for kids," that didn&#39;t mean it had to be shallow gloss paint. This wasn&#39;t even gloss. Besides, if they want to market it to kids then they should schedule at least one of its multiple showings at earlier hour.

Yeah, it was a little flat. Woulda liked to see some basic character building. Geez, treat it like a cinema release. And keep Brannon Braga away from it! WW&#39;s hooters would triple in size if he&#39;s involved!

Why in the name of all thats geeky didn&#39;t Paul Dini do this show.I mean this is the mother of all comic book cartoons and he isn&#39;t involved!The show wasn&#39;t as bad as that god awful Avengers toon a couple of years ago on Fox but I expected so much more from Bruce Timm and co.But there is still plenty of time for improvement so lets hope it does.

I was fine with the show, until Batman used the watch. Riiiiight.
Wouldn&#39;t have happened. I knew it was bad when going into the third act my wife turned to me and said, "This reminds me of that movie, Batman and Robin." She then watched Power Puff Girls and the writing was more intelligent. I have to assume JL was meant for kids, not fanboys. I will give it a few more episodes, but if it doesn&#39;t get better I will just wait for my Batman Animated Series DVD set...please WB!

...is that, since it&#39;s for little kids, you shouldn&#39;t get carried away about it being bad, or crappy, or whatever. If it was a movie, or even a TV show, with a message, or a unique and exciting character, or an Oscar-caliber script, etc., then I could see people getting excited about it not being treated right or made correctly. This is just a cartoon show. That&#39;s all I&#39;m saying.

...is a couple of episodes or even a movie showing the changes that occurred between the events of Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, et al and Justice League ie Why Kyle is not a Green Lantern Corps member anymore, any more exploration of the Batman-Superman/Bruce-Clark relationship, etc.

BATMAN was a groundbreaking cartoon, one that broke the barriers between kid viewers and adult viewers. It had an adult complexity and intelligence to it that made it more than kiddie fluff. Ditto for SUPERMAN, which polished the sci-fi cartoon genre to a high-gloss and proved once and for all that a boy scout hero could be a badass. JUSTICE LEAGUE has none of that; this is MTV-level tripe, superheroes for the TRL crowd. Cartoons CAN be written with intelligence and style and be more than "kid stuff." But JUSTICE LEAGUE is not. It&#39;s just dumb noise and explosions, which kids have seen a million times before in too many other movies and TV shows. Cartoons don&#39;t have to be "kid stuff"; they can be mature and meaningful shows. JUSTICE LEAGUE doesn&#39;t even qualify as dumb fun; it&#39;s just BATTLEFIELD EARTH-bad, plain and simple.

It seems kinda split here as to "I liked it!/Fuck, what the goddamn fuck was that? Seven year olds are gonna like this, not me!" (not in so many cursewords, I have a liking towards profanity, character flaw it is). Anyway, after a few hours of thought, this isn&#39;t as bad as the old Superfriends episodes with the dog and the two kids... so it has to be worth _something_. The bashing I expect, because we are on the Internet after all... different strokes to different folks and lots of profanity in between and all that. But, I still think this show has promise. Yes, the Flash can be seen as annoying, but with the way this show is set up, viewers need that dynamic. I mean, with Supes, Bats, GL, Hawkwoman/girl (I feel kinda odd typing HW/HG), Bats, and MM being so serious it&#39;ll give a stereotyped "frat boy" a headache... the comic relief is needed. And face it, it doesn&#39;t matter how many 20+ year old people watch Cartoon Network, this show is still going to have to be geared to kids somewhat. If it ain&#39;t Adult Swim then it isn&#39;t going to be for "us", and even then it won&#39;t be for "us", so fuck that argument. IMO, the bottom line is... if/when the show gets past a season, and complaints are still abound, then hey... we have something to bitch about. If not, fuck it... let&#39;s enjoy some quality American animation in the mean time. As long as it isn&#39;t being imported and it&#39;s still quality, then I don&#39;t give a fuck.

Overall I enjoyed it quite a bit. Now I&#39;ll be the first to admit I&#39;m easily entertained. I like the superhero thing. Always have. I grew up a DC comics fan so I go in hoping it&#39;ll be good. I don&#39;t think it was great but I&#39;ll certainly be watching the show for as long as it lasts. It&#39;s certainly more appealing than much of what&#39;s out there. At least to me!
Gripes? Sure. I also found the Flash to be very annoying. I haven&#39;t picked up a Flash comic in 25 years or so but don&#39;t remember him being a jerk. Maybe they figured they needed some comic relief(?) and who reads the Flash anyway? At least it&#39;s not batmite.
I agree with the poster (coop?) who asked about WW flying. I don&#39;t remember her ever flying. And for the poster who said her invisible plane was an invention of the 70&#39;s series, take a look at this. http://www.hastur.com/WonderWoman/gacovers/sc104.jpg
She had her plane back some 30 years before Linda Carter did. I also was a little bothered that someone who was fighting Nazis back in the 40s is the rookie. If I had to make anyone the rookie it would have been Hawkgirl. She&#39;s certainly new to me. Even if she may have been in the comics for some years now(I knew Hawkman)how many people really know her. Is she related to Hawkman? Daughter,niece? I don&#39;t know. Everyone knows WW.
I really miss Tim Daly&#39;s voice. I did find the new voice distracting. Of course that&#39;s mainly because it&#39;s different. I&#39;m sure I&#39;ll get used to it.
I&#39;m also hoping for a bit more development of the characters,heroes and villians. The nameless,faceless, alien menace is a fun start but hopefully we&#39;ll be geeting more substance in the upcoming episodes.
Hate to dwell on the negative but I see I&#39;m going really long here. Sorry folks. Bottom line...far from perfect but I&#39;ll be tuning in next week!

Wow! The Justice League sure has changed since I was a kid. Our good guys, including Superman and Batman, deliberately wasted (messily) about 200 intelligent aliens right before my eyes, which (although they richly deserved it) wasn&#39;t the Modus Operandi of the World&#39;s Finest as I recall. Or maybe we can just use the old Funimation bullshit about them all being "robots." Can I put in a plug for Alex Ross and Paul Dini&#39;s latest masterpiece, "Wonder Woman, Spirit of Truth?" http://www.alexrossart.com/archives/wwwar.html

That about sums up my feelings on the matter--as many flaws as it may have had, it was good enough to justify/earn some time to improve itself and be the JL cartoon we&#39;re all looking for. And thank God there was no Marvin or Wonder Twins!

I love that. Fanboys who defend it, saying it was mindless fun for kids, and turn around in the same beat and say &#39;And me and the kids loved it!&#39; Guys, if you&#39;re gonna disagree with me, please refrain from making my point for me. So I&#39;ll just agree with you and say yes, you have the art appreciation level of a seven year old.
And this is the first I&#39;ve heard of it being marketed to kids. Then, as others have pointed out, why is it on at a time which(for east coast kids) is passed their bed time at it&#39;s regular time? Why isn&#39;t it on Saturday mornings?Why is it being promoted alongside CN&#39;s &#39;adult swim&#39; adult block of animation? Why are they hyping the fact that these guys did Batman and Superman unless they plan on having a show as intelligent and adult friendly as those?
Besides, saying it&#39;s for kids is no excuse anyway. As a program for kids, it&#39;s of extreme lesser quality than Superman and Batman animated shows which were on Saturday mornings. You want to know what&#39;s quality kids entertainment? Harry Potter, E.T., the aforementioned Dini produced animated series, the JMS produced Real Ghostbusters. The Tick(animated, the tv show is just as good, but geared toward adults.), Powerpuff girls, Ren and Stimpy... All these were intelligent and just plain damn good. Which is why they all won awards, even in categories usually dominated by adults. It&#39;s time we stopped thinking our kids are complete morons who can&#39;t handle anything not dumbed down.

Also, I&#39;m getting a little tired of seeing Superman getting tossed around like a rag doll all the time, which seems to be the case not only here but on his earlier cartoon show. I realize we need to build up some suspense somehow, but at this rate he&#39;s going to start falling over when someone shoots a .22 pistol at him. And how long did it take him to figure out how to burn himself loose at the end? Much less burn the bad guys? My son says he did it on purpose to give Batman a chance to make his play, but he was looking a little dim there to me.

It may have been an occasional idea in the Golden Age comics--that I wouldn&#39;t know for sure. But it wasn&#39;t a standard Wonder Woman accessory in the Silver Age. When they first made the animated Superfriends, they were considering merchandising options, and the Invisible Jet was created in order to provide a vehicle that could possibly be later exploited in toy form, though to my knowledge there never was an invisible jet toy. Regardless of when it began, Wonder Woman has always been a "flying" hero--the jet in the cartoon just gave the impression to the general non-comic book reading public that she was not. I don&#39;t know if your other question there was rhetorical or not, but Hawkgirl is the wife of Hawkman.

Yeah, I got more thoughts on the cartoon that is known as JL. Anyway, I haven&#39;t read any of Morrison&#39;s run on JLA (his X-Men work is badass and bag of Fritos though), but I felt like the "Secret Origins" storyline was more reminiscent of the latest story line that took place before the "Last Laugh" issue (dealing with the White Martians, I think it was Waid&#39;s last storyline), but that&#39;s just me. As for the continuing stances that are against the show, I can see where those viewpoints are coming from. Let&#39;s just hope those gripes make the creators take notice and make the show that much better, huh? And yes, I&#39;m still waiting for the day that the Wonder Twins get the treatment they deserve besides getting decapitated and tossed into a gutter... done right, the Wonder Twins would rock ass, and no, I haven&#39;t read those comics if there are in fact comics with them as the focal point. :) Uh, yeah... any speculation as to when they&#39;re gonna call Diana "Wonder Woman"?

I DO agree that the show seems to be primarily marketed toward older fanboys, but I&#39;d point out that it IS also being geared toward children--all episodes also air on Friday evenings at 7:00 in addition to their 9:30 airings on Mondays. An early Friday timeslot clearly IS one geared toward child audiences. Wow, I&#39;m just posting on this TB WAY too much--that&#39;s it for me!

Okay, that&#39;s fine. Adults can enjoy cartoons, too, I&#39;m not saying they can&#39;t. But it&#39;s just weird to see people get all carried away about this sort of thing, that&#39;s all I&#39;m saying. I wasn&#39;t trying to start a huge argument or anything. And by the way, I&#39;m 16, in case that &#39;30 year old fanboy&#39; thing was directed at me.

Hey, remember the SuperPowers toys... I know you do! I sent away for the goddamn Clark Kent figure, so I have a good deal of emotional value invested in those action figures and whatnot. Anyway, who else would support an action figure line of the Justice League? "Yeah, but they released Batman toys and Superman toys based off of those animated series!" Sorry, but fuck that... they have a new market to cater to, one that wasn&#39;t around when the original shows were airing on TV. I wouldn&#39;t mind owning a John Stewart GL anwyay (no, I&#39;m not gonna pay for the DC Direct one)... and Carl Lumbly has a good show, that being Alias... then again, I dug him on MANTIS so long ago... and yes, I still like the portrayal of the Flash on the animated show.

What&#39;s up with MM&#39;s outfit? I mean if anyone deserved a costume update it was him and not GL or Batman. At least show the audience the basis for his fashion sense, like the rest of his civilisation wearing that getup or something. MM: "Perhaps this will help you trust me!", (morphs into a red-eyed, naked, green neanderthal in a cape) Bats: "Well...no, frankly.".

First off, I am sick and tired of everyone acting like Paul Dini was the sole writer capable of quality material during the eight year run of the Fox/WB Batman/Superman shows. Even Dini and Timm have openly admitted that, if not for the imput of Alan Burnett, the early Fox shows would have risked turning into standard kiddie fare. Michael Reeves, Boyd Kirkland, Kevin Alteri, Dan Riba, Shirley Walker. All of these people had as much a hand as Timm and Dini in shaping the Batman/Superman animated mythos.
Ok, got that out of the way. Bruce Timm, as time goes on, seems less and less responsible for the quality of the initial Fox shows. Witness how he streamlined the Batman shows in 1997, making the characters more stylized, less human looking, less detailed, and less beautiful to look at, just for the sake of making them run a little faster.
When the show went to the WB, the shows also lost several key components, namely Michael Reeves (left to help write Gargolyes), Kevin Alteri (went to work on Spawn), Dan Riba (eventually worked on X-Men: Evelution).
The biggest change at the WB was of course the less stringent censors. As odd as this sounds, especially coming from and ACLU member, the strict standards at Fox may have actually helped the writers. Because the writers could not fill the shows with action and violence for a full 20 minutes, they were forced to write shows that had stories, depth, and character development, as opposed to the non-stop action episodes that make up the bulk of the later shows. True, it was nice having The Joker actually be able to murder people onscreen, but I missed the rich characters and dialogue.
Rich crime dramas like Appointment in Crime Alley and tender, tragic romances like Mad as a Hatter were replaced with jumky action and chase-fests like The Ultimate Thrill, Critters, and the horrific The Demon Rises. Even episodes that had interesting story hooks, like Mean Seasons and Chemistry, were marred by pointless 2nd-act action scenes that took up valuable time and left the character arcs feeling rushed and incomplete. Yes, there were exceptions (Growing Pains, Over the Edge, World&#39;s Finest, and Old Wounds), but the majority of the New Batman Adventures (and second/third season Superman episodes) substituted fist-cuffs and laser blasts for genuine storytelling.
Batman Beyond was a slight improvement only in that it had a higher ratio of storytelling and character conversation to explosive action scenes than the WB Batman and Superman shows.
Which now brings us to Justice League. Just as I feared, the de-evolution is complete. What started as a series of high-quality animated dramas, mysteries, comedies, and melodramas which represented a new high water mark for the genre has become yet another juvinille action-fest. 60 minutes of explosions, chases, and laser blasts, without even a hint of character beyond quick clips (IE-Flash: jokey slacker; Wonder Woman: naive newcomer)... personality-less enemies without a hint of motivation or phycosis... shockingly banal writing and wordplay, most of it expository... piss-poor voice acting, and lousy, overally bright animation to boot (but, wow do they fly fast!)
I never thought it would come to this, but X-Men: Evolution is actually superior to The Justice League. Yes, the writing on X-Men is horribly cliched and juvinille and often makes me cringe, but at least they are TRYING to tell character-driven stories that don&#39;t constantly rely on explosions and more explosions. Yes, it has come to this. Bruce Timm has produced a show that represents every cartoon stereotype that Batman: The Animated Series helped destroy and undo. Not even Paul Dini and Alan Burnett may be able to save it at this point. Timm and co. have done what The Joker and Darkseid could not. Now that The Justice League has fallen, only The Powerpuff Girls remains to protect us (oh, and for the record, Buttercup would have kicked those aliens outa the planet in less than five minutes).
Scott Mendelson

I want to add something. While Batman TAS was one of the greatest "cartoons" ever made, I always wondered what the big deal about Superman TAS was. I know it&#39;s considered Blasphey, but I didn&#39;t like the art style of the Fleisher cartoons. And while it fit Batman, what was the need to put in Superman? So we could see the same thing again?
That being said, I didn&#39;t see all of the episode, but I caught bits and pieces. What I say seemed all right for an opening. BTW, I like Moriarty and his reviews, but what does everybody feel the need to hide behind the cowardist attacks of Sept 11 and say they shouldn&#39;t show that? OK, that isn&#39;t exactly what M said, but everybody in the popular media is so afraid of hurting somebody else&#39;s feelings. It&#39;s like this lunacy of editing out the WTC out of movies. What the FUCK is that all about? Funny how the people that talk about geeks like us having problems telling the difference between fantasy and reality are making utterly STUPID decisions like this. OK, pulling the Spiderman tailer was one thing, but there was a shot of the WTC in "Don&#39;t Say A Word". Nobody got that one. Are stuipos going to go back and take the WTC out of all the older movies and TV shows? Ok, end of rant.
JLA has the potential to kick butt, but the absence of Dini I have to wonder. Anybody know what the deal with Dini is?

If you&#39;re a nerd, and are going to get all hard-ass about continuity, then you might have a problem with JL ongoing. However, this episode blew my mind, and exceeded my expectations. One of the things that lingered with me was the fact that I&#39;ve rarely watched a Batman or Superman cartoon, where I felt at anytime they were in actual jeopardy. Tonight, I actually felt that our heroes were in danger. A very rare experience. Kevin Conroy IS Batman to me. When I read the comics, that is what I hear in my head, and I&#39;m estactic they got him to come back. Tim Daly not returning is a real shame, because the voice actor for Superman just doesn&#39;t have the "oomph" that is necessary for the role. Everyone else was great. I&#39;m a huge fan of J&#39;onn J&#39;onzz in the comics, and I loved seeing him come to life. The demonstrations of his powers were excellent, and the non-comics fans I watched it with let out little "whoas" whenever he did something different. In particular, a scene where he pulls a "Vision" (Marvel reference, sorry) and materializes solid after putting his hand through a couple of aliens in his phantom form. And Wonder Woman is hot. She&#39;s also very close, at least in this episode, to previous incarnations of her character, minus the experience. She&#39;s brash, and aggressive, and while it appears she has misconceptions about Man&#39;s World, she still shows compassion towards others. I also liked Green Lantern, and the depiction of his powers - he&#39;s a definite military hard-ass, as they promised. It&#39;ll be interesting to see him let go around the JL group. His excuse for being late was pretty funny one-liner. Flash and Hawkgirl need a little more fleshing out, but that will come. Batman, was absolutely kick ass in this.
What was great about this episode was that it showed everyone&#39;s vulnerable. Maybe some people don&#39;t like the Morrison version of "Pull the Bat out of the bag," but I happen to be a fan of it. I like the idea of Batman, being the only non-superpowered member of the team using his wits and showing all of them up in moments. I don&#39;t think the writers of JL will make the mistake of it being a constant. And what a perfect way to end the episode, with Superman saying that he thought he could save the world on his own, but he can&#39;t and he needs their help. The writing was just GREAT. The direction was excellent as well, particularly in the first half hour. Definite Japanimation influence. I&#39;m really looking forward to this series ongoing. More than any live-action stuff going on right now.

A lot of the comments made by Herc and Moriarty seem to reflect a frustration with the fact that this FIRST EPISODE does not hold par with BATMAN: TAS or BATMAN BEYOND, considering that they have had many many many episodes between them and some straight-to-video releases and even a full-blown theatrical release. We were so impressed with the first episodes of those shows because they were the first of their kind; a cartoon that actually catered to fans of the comic. It was a beautiful thing. We were just so fascinated that somebody actually made a show for us fucking fanboys that we loved it immediately! And if the opening to BATMAN BEYOND isn&#39;t the coolest opening of any cartoon ever, I don&#39;t know what is. Still, yes, the characters need fleshing out, and Wally West needs some new dialogue (badly). Even so, this was a pretty fucking cool premiere and I intend to be a faithful watcher.
AVE ATQUE VALE

Do you realize that everyone ignores your post when you ignore all those that came before and just post your &#39;review&#39;?
Anyway, from the sounds of it, you&#39;re happy about the heroes, not the way it was written. That&#39;s exactly what the gushers keep saying, &#39;It was so great to finally see them together again&#39;. That&#39;s not a valid reason for saying this was a good pilot. It&#39;s like the fangeeks who say they&#39;ll go to every Batman movie or Star Wars movie no matter how bad they get. Just so they can see they&#39;re favorite universe/characters up on the screen.
I&#39;m glad everyone&#39;s happy to see the seven in action. But a good show, does not make. It was badly done, simply put. And Superninja, that&#39;s not specifically directed at you, but all the people who have said the same thing.

Let me first say that I didn&#39;t catch the show so I can&#39;t comment on people&#39;s opinions of the music. But according to my info, Michael McCuiston is doing the scores for JL. Some people have said how much they&#39;d like Shirley Walker to come back. Michael is a long time member of Shirley&#39;s team. In fact, he wrote many of the scores for Batman:TAS as well as Superman:TAS. Just FYI.

The reason Supes didn&#39;t free himself is because he gets his energy from the sun and they were underground until the very end where they discovered the aliens don&#39;t like ultraviolet light so after they punched some holes in the place and let the sunshine in it restored his powers and he could use his heat bision to burn through that goop.

TheEnigma is dead-on: a fella whose monicker is "who-farted" is pointing the finger at _ME_ for having the sensibilities of a 7-year-old? If you don&#39;t smell the irony, come over here and pull my finger. Jack_Napier has tagged exactly why this show didn&#39;t bother me: the CN suits pulled a bait-n-switch. Sure, Dini&#39;s posse helped devekop it (the potential for character conflict and development is certainly in the premise) BUT there is indeed none of the sophisticated intelligence and cleverness which put Dini in the aforementioned Fanboy Pantheon. Believe me, "fart fascist", if you grew up on as much BADBADBAD Saturday morning fare as I did, you learn to expect that tripe as the norm and Dini&#39;s stuff as the blissfully redemptive exception. So to Fartboy, fuck you and your "deeper" understandings: I don&#39;t need you to police taste while spouting off like a fuckwit gas bag.

Not much that I can add to some very well put reviews, but we had a good run, over ten years. I love BTAS and all that has come from it. I didn&#39;t love this show last night. Just like Cartoon Network&#39;s other action show, Samurai Jack, a lot of beautiful design, almost no dialogue and Action! Action! Action! I&#39;m sorry, but the action is not that good. Planes don&#39;t fly like that, or crash like that. Physics was never the strong point on the DC Animated shows. Even if the action was great, I never liked action stories without thought anyway. I&#39;m open to hoping for better episodes. I&#39;m also open to saying goodbye, and give me BTAS, STAS and BB on DVD. I&#39;m really shocked at the difference in quality between last season&#39;s Batman Beyond and Justice League. Return of the Joker, even cut, should not be on the same shelf with the "Serious Super Friends". Almost all the thinking cartoons are gone or have run their course. As we become overrun by bad manga, X-man&#39;s Creek, and Mighty Morphin Transformers, I will start to more fully collect Reboot, Gargoyles, Beastwars/Beastmachines, all the BTAS stuff, The Maxx, and anything else that had a brain. I worked in animation until recently, and almost all of the major independent animation houses in the US are in hibernation or have closed shop. So what&#39;s out there is going to be big Disney fare and stuff for the kid&#39;s for a long time to come. Look at how poorly WB hyped "Iron Giant". Disney&#39;s best try at non-babysitting, "Atlantis" wasn&#39;t amazing, but a good start in a good direction. There is no economic reason for animation to be made for my tastes. I doubt there will be for awhile. Justice League confirms it. Other than that, I&#39;ll go curl up with some Simpsons, Power Puffs and SpongeBob SquarePants. Sadly, the most intelligent fare out there is in silly sarcasm. I guess I should checkout "Invader Zim". Is that as good as everyone tells me it is?-Redbox

It&#39;s the action show that Super Friends should have been. In spite of the lack of Dini, it is still highly recognizable, when compared to the rest of the recent DC fare.
I want to see you guys do a script treatment that would make all of them real people, yes all seven, in 90 minutes.
2 and a half stars. I&#39;ll grant you that the villians and initial plot were highly derivative. I&#39;ll grant you that it doesn&#39;t hold a candle to the comic book of late.
But were not going for an emmy here. This isn&#39;t meant to be art or literature, it&#39;s meant to be fun. Are you so jaded? I pity you. Just like I pity all the people who hated the D&D movie, Episode I, and who will hate LotR and some how feel personally betrayed by the producers!
Get a life! Have a little fun.

Lighten up kiddies, it&#39;s a cartoon. I&#39;m 41 years old and a x-comicbook geek, but I still got a thrill just seeing my childhood Superheros being represented very well. I have a 4 year old and he really liked it. Let the inner child be free and stop being pessimistic geeks. The oldman has spoken. Now bring me my cane!

Wonderwoman is acceptable as the rookie because she did NOT fight in World War 2. The WW that fought with the JSA in World War 2 was Diana&#39;s mother Hippolyta. So, it is not really wrong for her to be the new one.

Of course it should, for the very reason that the pilot is supposed to represent the very best the show has to offer. Consider...
Batman: TAS- The Cat and the Claw doesn&#39;t not count as (I&#39;m guessing) Fox ran that one first on Saturday as a connection to Batman Returns. The true first episode (the first episode produced too) was On Leather Wings, which of course featured terrific animation, a well-written mystery, a solid introduction to all the main characters (even a humorous cameo by Harvey Dent, who&#39;s seen flipping a coin), crackling dialogue, and good pacing (trivia note: it is also the only Fox episode where Batman bleeds).
Gargolyes: The five part, 98 min opening is still surpassed only by the four part City of Stone as the pinacle of that show&#39;s original 65 ep run.
Superman: Last Son of Krypton was a well-written, well-paced three part origin story that introduced all the principles and still had time for a couple of good action scenes (I still think it was ballsy to keep the entire first third on Krypton).
The New Batman Adventures: Holiday Knights featured above average animation and well-written, if silly adventure pieces. I only wish the scene at the diner at the end was a little longer. And, best of all, we finally got to see The Joker killing people! Yay!
Batman Beyond: compare the prologue to Rebirth to the prologue to Secret Orgins. Nuff said.
Put simply, if Secret Orgins is the best that the JLA team has to offer, I am weary of having hope for improvement.
Scott Mendelson

Well, to tell you the truth, I thought JL was pretty good. I agree that it wasn&#39;t up to the level of quality that the Supes/Bats shows were, but it was very entertaining and did have that Paul Dini charm. I think that the cartoon show can improve though, just like the Superman one did in the later episodes. At least this series was much better than that horrible "Avengers" series on Fox a couple of years ago(No, I&#39;m not a Marvel basher). Oh, BTW The Enigma: Thank you for being one of the few people on these Talkback boards who seems to understand that people have their own opinions and aren&#39;t stupid if they like of dislike something. You acutally agreed with this flatuance guy on JL and yet you critized him for suggesting that anyone who liked the cartoon had no taste. Good job man. I wish AICN had more talkback posters like you, it might actaully make reading these posts less grating.

And to the guy who said I should read talkbacks, I wasn&#39;t posting in reply to other talkbacks, I was responding to Moriarty and Herc&#39;s review. Anyway, getting back on topic...Everyone who is complaining about how the characterization wasn&#39;t that deep, Morrison comparisons, etc., I would like you to keep one thing in mind. FIRST, this was an introductory episode for every character besides Superman and Batman. In fact, it was also setting the stage for the type of threats that we&#39;ll be seeing - backdrop. Something so big that one man can&#39;t handle it alone. I thought they did a good job in that respect. War of the Worlds has been ripped off a million times, but I was surprised at how creepy and sci-fi the opener was for a cartoon. SECOND, this is not your JLA. Batman and Superman know each other, that much is clear, but we don&#39;t know that they&#39;re trusting friends. No "Bruce" or "Clark" anywhere in this episode. So the characterization will come, because there&#39;s just not any history between these people. Batman seemed aware of Hawkgirl, but that&#39;s about it. LASTLY, I&#39;m really surprised you guys are tearing it apart so much considering the pacing of the show. Everything moved really fast. I will agree that some of the dialogue could&#39;ve been more clever, but this is just one show. I&#39;m more than willing to give it another shot, seeing as they&#39;ve already said there are going to be episodes targeted towards specific heroes (i.e. GL and Diana, so far). Other than that, I can see why some people didn&#39;t like the score and animation, but it was good enough for me. There are very few cartoons that will ever compare to Batman and Superman: The Animated Series. By the way, let&#39;s hear how YOU would introduce all of the characters in a 3-part action/adventure cartoon. I&#39;m all ears.

Okay, kids, settle down. It&#39;s been about 20 hours since JL hit, and looking over these TalkBacks, it looks like JL is a love or hate proposition. Either you enjoyed JL or you thought it was the worst piece of tripe since Mama Cass made her last sandwich... Critics, have you really considered what you are doing? You have stated (ad nauseum) that JL ain&#39;t no BTAS or even STAS. Now, back in my lurker days, it seems that several of you didn&#39;t seem to care for STAS very much other. Who wanted to see that big blue boy scout for endless half-hour eps? Especially with that damned Lois & Clark crap on. Suddenly, STAS is a classic... JL (the concept) is, was, and will always be a wet dream for fanboys. SuperFriends, as much as I complain about it now, was da S*IT back in the 70s. Why? You had Supes, Bats and WW all in one place for the first time on TV! (Aquaman had pictures of Hanna and Barbera dressed as Hannah and Barbara... now you know...) It was COOL! Wendy and Marv were tossed in to "give the kids someone to identify with." (Apparently, your parents had to be blown off a highwire to identify with Robin...) That lasted for a couple of years, until the kids who liked it outgrew it (me...) and newer kids were not impressed with its novelty. HB tried again with a Reorg (bye, Wendy and Marv) by giving the sidekicks super powers of their own (hello, Zan and Jayna)... That worker as well, for two seasons... Then came "Challenge of the SuperFriends" which added more superheroes to the mix, then another version that added Firestorm and Cyborg, and kids STILL got burned out. (Somebody check my chronology here... I haven&#39;t been watching the Boomerang marathons.) Point being: The audience for the show was KIDS. Start to finish, it was a KIDS&#39; show. But kids were "growing up" faster and faster and decided that they like Dungeons and Dragons instead, like me. SIDEBAR: That shows you&#39;re old, when you don&#39;t think that a reference to "D&D" will be caught by everyone. Sigh... Anyways, the kids who watched SuperFriends grew up to write BTAS, which came hot on the heels of the 89 Batman when ol&#39; Pointy-Ears was being called THE Batman. Suddenly, an adult&#39;s perspective was being applied to the old heroes. Superman realized he was just an overgrown boy scout and decided to get laid. Wonder Woman&#39;s girdle size fell to the single digits. Aquaman lost his wife, his son, his throne AND his friggin&#39; hand... This is all fine and good for FanMEN, but there suddenly aren&#39;t any true FanBOYS (or FanGIRLS) anymore... NOW THEN, what did all that rambling have to do with JL anyways? The JL pilot I saw was not made for us. It was not made for a 30-year-old failed writer who&#39;s working at a dead-end job so his wife can finish college... It was made for his two kids who sat riveted in front of the screen and flinched when they saw the invincible Superman take a hit and fall. The kids who saw the greatest heroes of all time picked apart like a spaghetti dinner. The kids who have only known the safe world of SuperFriends... My 6 and 8 year olds were riveted by this ep, were thrilled when the League pulled it all together, and wondered who the big green guy was. (No, not GL... The one who keeps melting...) Wrapping up... I liked the show, though I can see room for improvement. My kids LOVED the show and now want to read the comic book. I&#39;ll skip over the JLA for right now and try the JL Adventures on them. Who knows? I may have a new Fanboy and Fangirl on my hands... They already hate Wonderdog... Over and out... ~pS~

Oh boy...I see someone responded from the Chuck Dixon school of writing. That Superman must be in constant solar contact to have power (much like a solar calculator). It&#39;s a ludicrous line of thought.
Superman stores solar energy for a looooooong time. He doesn&#39;t lose his powers like that. And once again, these guys making the show know that. They did a full series of Superman episodes that feature subterrean adventures, deep space missions, etc. He kept his powers in all instances unless there was red sun energy or kyptonite near by. Neither was present in this JL toon.
And again, that&#39;s the reason for my problems (both in other complaints and comparisons to Morrison). These guys knew better. They knew better from past experience and they knew better from having obviously read the source material. Everybody can scream "Silly Fan Boy, Toons are for kids!" all they want...no one should be rewarded for putting out a lazy product when they had so many things showing they knew better.
Toons can be for both kids and adults. Batman TAS (at least Fox&#39;s), Superman TAS and Batman Beyond all worked on these multi tiered levels from their respective starts. Justice League has gotten off to a bad start in that respect. Will it turn around? Very possible...and I&#39;m not condemning it just yet. I will be watching to see if they are indeed working out some bugs (as I said before)...and hopefully they are. Roughly 10 years of quality product gives them some deference in my mind. But that doesn&#39;t change the fact that they got off to a bad start when you compare it to everything else they were involved in before this. And yes, Virginia...you are compared to your own past work believe it or not. Even when it is "for kids".

I&#39;m looking for any talkback/bulleten board type sites for discussing the recent Batman-related comic books. Anyone care to share their thoughts on the recent Last Laugh crossover? I personally was very dissapointed for, ironically, the very same reason I was dissapointed by JL (ie - way too much plotless action, way too little character interaction between The Joker and Batman/Nightwing/Robin/etc.), as well as the abscence of any real changes as a result of the events. Anyway, let me know where I can read other people&#39;s thoughts on this. Thanks.
Scott Mendelson.
PS... for those who are wondering, the Justice League "widescreen presentation" tonight is not actually in widescreen. It was animated in the 1.33 ratio than had the black bars slapped on the top and bottom to make it "appear theatrical". Heck, comparing the images actually reveals that the SIDES are even cropped for the sake of letterboxing. God, I hate when they do that. The whole point of widescreen and letterboxing is to see the whole image, not for it to look neat. Many movies which are show 1.85 in theaters are actually filmed this way (such as Willy Wonka, which is why I bought the full frame version). The site www.dvdlaser.com will often have a comparision when it applies.

sorry, but the meaningless last post but i&#39;ve only posted like 5 times my whole life and had to make sure my password still works. ok, here&#39;s how i saw the justice leage. as many of you pointed out, it was no stroke of genius. superman&#39;s new voice is not the greatness that tim daly&#39;s was(it&#39;s funny how great we all think his superman was now that he&#39;s gone). obviously it was kind of odd that kyle rayner who was gl on superman is no longer gl. that was left unexplained. the aliens take over the world thing has been done to death. when batman "died" NOBODY over 8 actually thought he was dead. a noticable lack of faves like lois lane, alfred, jimmy olsen etc left it feeling a tad dry. and for the love of god, how can you show superman in his apartment and not have him be clark kent. just plain wrong. but i digress. we should all be ashamed of how much smack we&#39;ve talked on this show. how many of you damn near wet your pants when you heard this thing was actually gonna happen. *raising my hand*. i know i did. we should be lucky the damn show even exists. let&#39;s look at all the positives. the characters themselves. these are good characters. superman, batman, martian manhunter, etc. only the big guns. that&#39;s good. we start seeing people like blue beetle as members and we have problems, but so far so good on that front. next, let&#39;s look at the action. yes, there was a ton more than we&#39;re uses to from a dc comics cartoon nowadays, but really so what? the justice league was created to stop earth threatening disasters not solitary types like the joker. i LOVE the joker but him by himself is no threat for this people. so to me the extreme action worked. and lastly the voices, my god the voices rocked! only person i didn&#39;t dig was this new guy who plays superman. he just ain&#39;t quite what tim daly was. on the flip side, KEVIN CONROY IS A FUCKING GOD! i would like to do voiceover work in the near future and he continues to be one of my biggest role models. in conclusion, i gotta give it a strong 4 out of 5 stars. justice league is a good show especially when you compare it to all the other cartoon crap out there. i mean, xmen evolution isn&#39;t horrible but it is compared to the brilliant xmen of fox.

I guess the artists were trying to give Supes&#39; face a more "sculpted" look, but the lines under his eyes and the gashes that (I suppose) are meant to indicate high cheekbones actually made the Man of Steel look OLD. Cripes, I was wondering if Supes was eligible for Social Security benefits. And I agree with the earlier poster: BRING ON PLASTIC MAN!

Ok Napier, Ive got some comic book boards for you. The ones at dccomics.com are pretty good(unforntely, Marvel&#39;s site doesn&#39;t have any message boards). If the DC comics message boards seem too biased, you could try comicboards.com or the boards at dixonverse.com. Haven&#39;t read the Last Laugh series, so I can&#39;t really comment on it. However, I will give the JL cartoon a chance to get a little better.

I have a feeling about fifteen minutes of this show was cut out. Characterization was weak, and how the hell are they gonna explain the other heros? Clark doesn&#39;t know Lois? What is all this crap? Why is Superman&#39;s voice like that of a retard with peanut butter in his mouth? What&#39;s going on?!
The story could have been stronger if more was explained, but of course, WB would rather rush and get a show out than spend time making quality programming. I&#39;m a little confused though.. after reading the last headline about this.... Did we see three episodes? I know it&#39;s supposed to be in three episode story arcs, and I know they said it&#39;d air Mondays and Fridays... but are there gonna be two forty minute episodes each week? Clear this up guys, you&#39;re not making any sense!

Look, if Justice League is going to be a flashy dumbed down version of earlier work fine! I think that what your all missing is that BTAS was accessible to many ages and many levels. Like "Iron Giant" you take your kid and you enjoy it yourself, because it hits many intelligence levels. If you want to say it&#39;s just a kid&#39;s show relax, fine. That&#39;s the traditional cop-out. That&#39;s what TV executives must have said in the eighties, bringing us many, many shows that only meant to sell us crappy toys. There is a distinct difference between "Barney" and "Sesame Street". Between any big Disney song and dance feature with Gilbert Godfrey as a wise-cracking Dung Beetle and the "Iron Giant". One is an over stimulating babysitter that super-excites kids. The other is an engulfing world that mystifies child and adult alike. I first saw "Iron Giant" in a theatre full of children. My fear was they would distract me from the film I very much wanted to see. I was so wrong. The only noise in that room died down after the Pokemon movie trailer. During the film eyes were glued and breath was slowed. All I heard were gasps and sighs and giggles. Children had a profound if not absolutely magical experience, falling in love with an alien monster, who showed compassion and bravery and gave his life for them. I envy not seeing the movie when I was a child. When you get down to it, we are all a little into remembering our childhoods, that&#39;s why we&#39;re not talking about whether or not we like the newest episode of CSI or Law and Order. So people calling other people childish or lame on either side is just kind of petty. There is nothing wrong with a show that kids enjoy. I remember going back to shows I loved when I was little, being disappointed by how bad they really were. There is a sad realization that as an adult, the magic is lost to you. So, I&#39;m smiling thinking of kids who grew up on the Batman and Superman cartoons going back to them in another ten years and thinking like I do whenever I watch "Yellow Submarine" or the first "Star Wars" or "Disney&#39;s Robin Hood" (yeah I know its Disney, but I Love this film), "Wow! I&#39;m back there! It really WAS Great!". I hope in the long run they say that about Justice League, I really do. But I&#39;m skeptical. -Redbox

spoof of the old superfriends cartoons. think about it, we all saw the hilarious cartoon network cartoons with the legion of doom and stuff, imagine a whole show that poked fun of the superfriends, like on seanbaby.com. it can be an adult swim type show with recylced animation. the old superfriends is just screaming to be spoofed. marvin and wendy. the wondertwins. going off to rescue superheros(aquaman most of the time) and having the hero standing next to them in a group. the countless times they made the flash fly. the ethnic superheroes apache cheif, el dorado and the pantless Samauri. and the villians! black manta, whos only power was having a boat. solomon grundy, the strong guy who the censors wouldnt allow to punch people. the list goes on and on. oh by the way did anybody catch the new dexters lab episodes tonight? they seem to be going with a different style of drawing the characters check it out.

Some of you guys really need to lighten up. I&#39;m not a follower of JLA in the comics, but I am a fan of B:TAS, S:TAS and BB. I thought this was a pretty decent pilot episode, and far beyond the old "Superfriends" series. If you want to see some real cringe-induceing dialogue, stories and animation just catch any episode of that show. Frankly, I don&#39;t really care if this series follows the comic continuity, it&#39;s its own entity and I&#39;ll enjoy it or not as such. I also don&#39;t get all the complaints regarding the voice acting. I thought everyone was fine, I miss Daly as Supes, but I&#39;ll get used to the new actor. I did think Superman looked a little odd, too many age lines or something. And Flash was a little kiddyish, but the show is aimed at kids too. Not just purists and aging fanboys. Besides, like someone else said, with this many serious characters, someone has to be the comedy relief. All in all, I thought it was fun to see these characters again, in a decent show that didn&#39;t include Marv or the Wonder Twins. Finally, if anyone&#39;s taking a poll, I did enjoy Flash&#39;s "Superfriends" joke. Peace.

Umm, I don&#39;t know what show you were watching, Moriarty, but Superman was in his PJ&#39;s in that scene. Sure, he wasn&#39;t wearing glasses, and his hair wasn&#39;t slicked back, but I don&#39;t know that many people who would be when they&#39;re about to go to sleep. Sure, there was more action than characterization, but keep in mind, this pilot episode featured every member of the League. . . something which most episodes won&#39;t. Future installments will have less going on, I&#39;m sure. So, there&#39;s bound to be more room for character development.

Does anyone know what the deal is with that? Is it shot in WS or not? I still enjoyed it on second viewing, but given some of the critique on the talkbacks, I watched more carefully, and I will concede a few points. The animation is sloppy in places, some of the voice acting is weak and the dialogue is a little too simplistic at times. But I still liked it. Thought the plot, while not being deep, was exciting and fun. The thing that left the greatest impression was just how creepy the aliens were and some of the visuals attached to that. The astronauts on Mars and Batman&#39;s snooping as Superman comes to his aide reminded me of a teaser for the X-Files. And I picked up on a few things that I had missed before, such as Batman noticing how the aliens withdrew from the sunlight during the rescue scene.

That&#39;s not true. Herc said that it didn&#39;t SEEM that way, meerly to emphasize the fact that she&#39;s not mentioned anywhere in the episode, nor is any part of Clark&#39;s life. But, there wasn&#39;t any NEED to bring it up! This is the JUSTICE LEAGUE PILOT we&#39;re watching, not another episode of Superman. They&#39;re going to have episodes that are geared toward individual League members, but not every time. . . which is good. The show&#39;s about the LEAGUE, not about their lives.

What did you really expect?
I suggest all of you bitching about character go watch some cowboy bebop and learn that:
Relationships DEVELOP.
They could have introduced one character per episode in order to begin a foundation for development, but then, Herc and Moriarty would bitch about the lack of "Action" we expect when we put all our favorite superheroes together.
They (Timm and Co.) made a decision to introduce them all at the same time, and build relationships as the show progresses.
This was the premier, stop bitching. If you already knew how the characters were going to interact, why watch at all?
Lev

The whole purpose of recreating the JLA in the comic book world a couple of years back was to take all of these heroes out of their own personal context, ignoring their storylines in their respective comics, and throw them together to save the world from threats that are just too big for them to handle on their own. This is what the pilot was about, and I thought it did an excellent job. I know everyone&#39;s complaining that it really doesn&#39;t follow comics continuity, but then again, neither did the Batman and Superman series. The only complaints I&#39;ve got about the show are #1-The show, at times, seems a bit punchy and disjointed, but that&#39;s the same problem I had with the Supes and Bats shows, and #2-the characterization definitely needs to improve for all the characters except Batman, Superman, and to a lesser extent, Martian Manhunter. Batman and Superman have already been established with their own series, and this episode was pretty much about J&#39;onn J&#39;onzz&#39;s origin, so I&#39;d love to see more of the other characters, especially Wonder Woman, who looks like she&#39;ll kick some ass. The pilot definitely rocked though, and I can&#39;t wait until they put it on DVD, and I will be tuned in week after week, just because of how frigging cool it is to actually be seeing these characters in motion, and not just in the comics pages.

Wonder Woman originally didn&#39;t have the ability to fly. She could not just leap up off the ground and take flight. Diana, like all amazons, had the ability to glide on air currents, like a hang glider but with out the kite. In the many restructurings of the DC universe, it has been changed in to the power of flight. The invisible plane has been around since the first issue. She used it to bring Steve Trevor back to the States from Paradise Island. It wasn&#39;t created for the TV series or the Superfriends. During the Golden age, it was prop driven, During the Silverage it was a jet.

Well after watching it, it seems to be okey show. I agree with the others without someone like Dimms who outside the excutives of Time/Warner-Bros limited grasp of reality, the show may fair poorly in the seasons to come. I think they did well in first showing. This is after all a kids show, not for likes of us *grown-up* kids.
Granted they did make better shows in the pass, but unfortunately things burn themselves out. We&#39;ll need to wait another generation to get something decent made in animation to be untained by corp&#39;s and Parent group&#39;s politically Correct/hyper senstivity crap that destroys good shows. JL is okey for what it is. Riding on the remains of a good run of DC based animation. Seems only decent stuff that comes out is from Japan, because their culture isn&#39;t as messed as ours has become.
--Peace

I was disappointed that she was not even mentioned at the UN meeting. Lois would&#39;ve been there. But they don&#39;t want to focus on the personal lives of the characters, I guess. Like other people, I think that&#39;s a mistake. At least in the long run. Lois is really a part of Superman. Superman verges on being boring without his personal life playing into things. The whole concept of Superman and Batman are the dichotomy between their personal lives and their superhero missions.

Who&#39;s to say that Lois won&#39;t be in a future episode, maybe one that revolves around Superman? Timm and Co. have hinted that such episodes are going to happen with each character. We&#39;ll just have to wait and see.

It may happen. But I&#39;m kind of disheartned by the fact that Timm said he doesn&#39;t want their personal lives to play too much into the series.****On another note, I&#39;m very happy to see Batman and Wonder Woman having so much interplay. To me, these characters have the potential to be the Moonlighting of the DCU. I know I&#39;ll get nasty remarks for saying that, but I was happy that they didn&#39;t try to set up sparks between Superman and Diana. B-O-R-I-N-G.

This is all I&#39;m gonna say to those who have adressed their posts to me personally. Settle down. I&#39;m not that damn significant to be getting in such a tizzy over. And when you adress your posts to me, calling me names, cursing and all that, guess what--the moderators take notice and they view it as a flame war and start banning people. So that no one mistakes me or any of you for being a troll, I&#39;d ask that you address the topics and points, and please not f-ing start calling people fascists and saying &#39;FUCK YOU&#39; in every sentence. To address you points, if you reread my posts, I never said you couldn&#39;t have your own opinion. I never declared that only my views or opinions are valid and christ on a cracker, if I don&#39;t know where the hell you got that. I never said you couldn&#39;t have your own opinions, but I found the reasoning and logic withwhich you arrived at your points(it&#39;s just a kid&#39;s show, etc.), flawed.
Also looking back, I think I owe Superninja an apology. I kinda singled you out and got a lil personal because sumthin bugged me, and that wasn&#39;t kosher. Even though I didn&#39;t get nearely as personal as those who I&#39;ve responded to above. And I wasn&#39;t trying to bring age into the discussion, but it seemed there was an inherant contradiction by saying &#39;it&#39;s just for kids&#39;(which I think is no excuse, so was the Iron Giant, as someone mentioned. And so is Lord of the Rings if you read J.R.R.&#39;s correspondence.) and saying &#39;And I, and adult, loved it!&#39; Age doesn&#39;t matter. I know too many immature fucks not to admit that. I&#39;m 19 and I love a buttload of smart kids programming which I mentioned in previous posts. It&#39;s not about age, it&#39;s about quality. I just don&#39;t believe this was up to the quality set forth by Timm and co. and I think this was below them. As Napier so eloquently pointed out, JL was everything that Batman TAS original tried to get away from. Whether you judge it as kids programming or animated programming for all ages, as a Timm and co. production, it reeks in my lil opinion. I hope this puts an end to all personal attacks and since I didn&#39;t really saying anything new here(I&#39;m just clarifying and reiterated what I said in previous posts.) I don&#39;t think there&#39;s any need for rebuttals, especially the kind that could get people banned...

First, I&#39;d just like to say that this talk back has had the most responses I&#39;ve ever seen of any T.B.&#39;s. I have to disagree with Herc and Mori,and these are two guys that I have alot of respect for and still do, but we can&#39;t always be right. You can&#39;t get everything you want in the first three episodes because there&#39;s so much to do and cover, but that&#39;s what makes a series. If you do everything in the first three episodes then what do we have to look forward to. I think Bruce Timm is doing a great job considerating all the pressure of fanboy expectations that comes with this territory. I personally think that WB&#39;s doesn&#39;t know what it&#39;s doing but they did ok with this. Paul Dini is the shit and so is Bruce Timm, but the truth is they are magnificent as a team, but it&#39;s better to have one of them on this then someone else.Right? Now the show is entertaining and exciting, but I mainly have a problem with the length. I think it should be an hour long so that the story arc&#39;s could be better supported, it&#39;s very difficult to tell an informed story in less than 30 minutes especially to an adult audience. They should move this to a more teen and adult oriented audience and by doing that make the flash&#39;s role more of an adult humor and the Dark Knight more extreme in his darkness and violence toward&#39;s the criminally intent( I want to see him kick the crap out of people so he&#39;s not seen as inferior to our superpowered friends). Actually I think they should keep Batman out of this whole thing because I like the Dark Knight as a loner. I also like the Green Lantern in the show and hope they develop his character into a fierce Batman type which is the direction it seem&#39;s he&#39;s headed. Superman has always been the goodietushu, but as a 3-dimensional character he should have a darkside at one point(imagine Superman extremly angry and violent),and have an edge to him. WW should walk around nude after she kills Hawkgirl. I think we all agree Hawkbitch is expendable. I really appreciated that the animation was in dark over tones and really immense in colors. One last thing make Batman taller and more muscular, match him to Superman but a little bit shorter,but very little. Batman is god and doesnt answer to anyone so illustrate him as a brooding shadow of the night, as well as don&#39;t make him the supporting character in every episode,he&#39;s no one&#39;s bitch, make episodes where the story is about him and his world.

Paul Dini is shit without timm? I dunno, I read Batman: War on Crime and Superman: Peace on Earth and both were damn good. Not to mention his hilarious episode on the Clerks animated series. And I just can&#39;t bring myself to believe that Timm can&#39;t do the fantastic art he did in the past--without Dini. But hey, alot of partners in the past had that kind of relationship. Witness Morgan and Wong, the Cohen Brothers, Bryan Singer and Tom DeSanto(Oh am I gonna catch hell for saying they suck on their own...)

No offense Seth, but you seem to feel like a lot of us feel. Your changes are pretty similar to many of the people who were disappointed by the show. Personally, I still hope the show gets better. And its not that the episode was terrible, it&#39;s just that I kept waiting for it to get to that "OOOh!" level. Even when Batman jumped in, like we all new he would, it was awkward. Its just kinda bland. Mediocre. Its not just bad writing, but boring plot and ridiculous everyone flying in a ten foot square composition. To people who say its a kid&#39;s show, sorry. If its just a kid&#39;s show, I&#39;ll accept that, and watch something else. I really fine with the body of work already in existence. I really hope it becomes a primer for the better shows for your kids and that you enjoy the shared time with them. But I&#39;m still quite surprised that that&#39;s enough to satisfy you. Oh well, Cheers!

I liked it more than Herc and Mori. Yes the script needed some help. When Supes said "I MUST stop thst thing!" and WW line "Hera give me strength", I had flashbacks to "Superfriends" circa 1974. But it was redeemed by Carl Lumbly&#39;s performance and Conroy as Batman. I agree superninja, Conroy&#39;s voice is the one I here when I read a Batman comic. Sidebar: an example of how good Conroy is was evident when "Batman Forever" was broadcast last week. When Val Kilmer is arguing with O&#39;Donnel about giving up Batman, his delivery is flat. NO EMOTION.***Back on topic: I also missed the full orchestra for the incidental music. But I did like the Flash. He was cocky, and arrogant, but he made me laugh. As to the issue of Paul Dini, he has been busy with other projects, plus he has worked on a JLA show. That&#39;s right gang, Dini was on staff during "The Super Powers Team" incarnation of "Superfriends". Those are the eps with Firestorm and Adam West voicing Batman (and he did a pretty good job). So that may have been a factor in his not being on staff full time IMHO. But, I have read the Dini may write some scripts for JL. I&#39;ll tune in this week and keep watching. Yes, it&#39;s not perfect but it is worth my time.-----later-----m

Being a huge fan of both the Batman and Superman animated series, I was really pissed to see those shows canned so the WB could make more money on Pokemon advertising. Credit Cartoon Network for picking up the show and letting the kid in all of us have some fun. Don&#39;t like, don&#39;t watch it. So Superman&#39;s voice is different, you&#39;ll get used to it; Wonder Woman has no jet, well atleast she is more in scale with what an amazon warrior should be; Flash clowning around, so what. IT&#39;S JUST THE FIRST SHOW!!! For those who hated it I&#39;ll guess you&#39;ll be watching Ally Mcbeal tonight instead, huh? Yeah right.

Fine, "who_farted" (geez it feels so 6th grade to even type it), I&#39;ll accept the figleaf and offer one of my own after a clarification. You get what you give, so careful how you characterize those with whom you disagree (and you did get personal, pal, go back and read). It is perfectly acceptable to ask "why" when we say we liked something you didn&#39;t; it is NOT okay to launch personal attacks then decry profanity when you yourself practice both... without apology, it should be noted. Here endeth the civics lesson. That said, yes the quality in JL ain&#39;t up to snuff you&#39;re accustomed to. My point is that this new gold standard is a fairly recent development and admittedly the exception rather than the rule. IMHO, this version of JL is not complete poo nor is it meaty fare for the comic literati. It may mature, as indeed BTAS did, so I&#39;m giving it a chance. I&#39;m sure you will too, despite rantings to the contrary. We&#39;ll see if you show up at the next JL talkback ready for more friendly disagreement (as I&#39;m sure you will). Maybe you should watch JL next week with a kid; they can be healthy reminders of the sheer wonder felt when seeing your favorite heroes come to life, even if somewhat short of more mature expectations. Peace, Out.

I am married to a non-geek, at least where it comes to comic books and television / movie adaptations of them. So it I was feeling a bit of unease when I convinced her to watch the pilot episode of JL with me.
She knows my love for super heroes. She&#39;s met the writers and artists I know. She even read the issue of Spider-Man I ghosted and called it "clever."
She and I had different views on the pilot. She thought the voice acting was good, the animation very good and the plot too dark for kids. Not having a pre-conceived notion of Martian Manhunter (she laughed when she found out he was a "Big green guy from Mars) or Hawkgirl or Green Lantern, she found those characters to be more than a little "light and fluffy." However, she did say that she would expect those characters to receive their own spotlight episodes which would greatly flesh them out. She disliked Flash and said that Superman just wasn&#39;t heroic enough.
I was disapointed as well. One thing I missed from the old STAS was Superman overcoming the impossible. A reoccuring theme in that series was that he would get his ass kicked for a while and then overcome his foes, while the superman theme swelled in the background. I never got the sense of this Superman being the overcoming hero in this one.
There were bits I loved, however. It&#39;s great to hear Kevin back as the Bat. He&#39;s such a fine voice actor and brings so much to the part.
I really didn&#39;t mind the new voice for Superman. I miss Tim Daly but at least this guy sounded better to me than the one used in the Batman Beyond episode.
What really kept me from totally enjoying this show, besides the nit-picks listed above, is that I am just burned out on the whole Alien Invasion plot. It was done to death in the comics (Our Worlds at War). Had this been something else, I might have enjoyed it more.
I&#39;ve gone on enough!

I was fairly disappointed. Didnt think Cartoon Network would pull off the WB budget, so clunky animation was no surprise. Thought the storytelling would be sharper. As far as characters- Always bored by Supes, and glad they went with a weaker "can get my ass kicked when kryptonite isnt around" version. Green Lantern being a more military serious guy is great, nice element to the group. Always hated a wisecracking FLash, but you need comic relief- they just took it too far (like his cartoon toungue wagging). Hawkgirl and Wonder Woman are basically the same character, two ass kickers who find Earth to be an alien culture- ho-hum. Martain MAnhunter, was Martain Manhunter, could maybe use an effect on his voice to alien him up more. Bats, as always, is the best... I think it was a good idea to start with a generic villain, you dont want to blow your wad with the Legion of Doom first time out, or make them the bad guys of every show. I&#39;ll give it a chance. What else is there to watch on Sunday nights? Bring on Solomon Grundy.

I have to agree with Harry.
Though I understand that the first three episodes were saddled with the unenviable task of introducing 7 heroes and a villain I was disappointed. I won&#39;t argue with the choices of making Wonder Woman a rookie or Green Lantern a marine. I would have gone a different way but those were fine choices.
What I am unhappy about is the writing. The story itself was hackneyed, annoying and in some cases baffling. How could an alien who is more afraid of sunlight than Dracula run for Senator? Why doesn&#39;t Superman ever use his heat vision until after J&#39;onn is almost electrocuted? Why if the Flash can outrun all of the alien ship blasts does Superman keep running right into them? Why doesn&#39;t Green Lantern ever create a protective bubble around them when they are walking into danger? Why does all the dialogue sound like it should be spoken by the Wonder Twins?
Its story problems like these that distract me as a viewer and tempers my enthusiasm for the animation and the characters. It was the writing of Batman:TAS and Superman which I used as a draw to pull in people who don&#39;t appreciate animation to watch those shows.
I am hoping that the story lines and writing improve.

Hmmm. J&#39;onn thrusting his hands inside aliens&#39; bodies, then "solidifying" causing them to die instantly? Pretty cool to me. Diana and J&#39;onn joining the team without anyone ever calling them wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter (there by, making it seem more real, and character driven)? Pretty awesome. Batman saving EVERYONE&#39;S ASS? Once again, that was kool and the gang.
Sure the whole alien invasion thing has been played to death, but the fact that it was THE alien race which killed J&#39;onn&#39;s whole civilation made it DAMN cool and (oops, don&#39;t mean to use those words again, but hey, I will even capitalize it for you), CHARACTER DRIVEN.
And Moriarty, the whole Superfriends joke? After Superman said, "I was thinking more about The Justice League", Flash responded, "Do you have any idea how corny that is!!" Once again, by my count that is pretty cool . .but I know the glass seems to be half full in my world. I mean, hell, when I am given a bad-ass Justice League animated series with ALL my favorite icons acting LIKE THEY SHOULD I ten to enjoy it. I know. I suck.

what disappointed me was seeing the &#39;widescreen&#39; version on Sunday... sorry kids, it&#39;s &#39;fakescreen&#39;.. or you could consider the regular showings &#39;open matte&#39;.. I recorded both and it&#39;s pretto obvious they just matted the top/bottom of the screen (check the astronauts missing legs in the WS version vs the full screen..
Do they really think we are fools??

Chiisusan, thanks for clarifying the Wonder Woman flying issue. Good to know I wasn&#39;t completely wrong,just behind the times!
Llama, thanks for the Hawk Girl info. I really didn&#39;t know her relation to Hawk Man. Interesting though, it appears she&#39;s single on the show. At least on "In Blackest Night Pt1". Flash is coming on to her asking her if there&#39;s a Hawk Boy or something like that. She just blows him off. Seems like she could have said buzz off I&#39;m married. I&#39;ll be interested to see how they develop her character.

How about the GL episode? Anyone else having flashbacks to the X-Men Sentinels when the OA robot dudes pummel the JL? I guess robots are the "p.c." solution for sidestepping the whole "killing" issue. No Batman either, and I think that&#39;s smart with the alien planet visit. That never really worked even in the fifties. The Stewart Green Lantern is largely stiff as a space jar-head: hope to see a little more when the cliffhanger resolves next week. Good points about the lower budget at Cartoon Network being a factor in the animation look. As far as the "letterbox" goes, I like it better and Dini explains the compositional dynamics are "tighter" with the more epic format. It isn&#39;t a trick, but the widescreen version was apparently a concession to CN execs (check out a link to the interview at comics2film.com). JL is still satisfying on the whole, but still room for improvement.

Gawd, this show makes me actually miss the old Super Friends cartoon. How hard was it to base the cartoon off of the successful JLA comic book? Ugh. If Batman Beyond couldn&#39;t make it...what hope is there for this tripe?

liked it, specially the old school GL&#39;s that had a cameo.
Would like to see GL make some actual power ringed items though, like hammers, boxing gloves, a nod to Hal if you please. Didn&#39;t Dr. Fate show up in an ep of STAS?

TheAtarisFan, are you sure about that. Nothing I can find would suggest that. The earliest info that I can find all show Diana leaving Hippolyta and Paradise Island to go to the world of men.
Isn&#39;t that the whole point of the character? If anyone else has any info to the contrary I&#39;d like to hear about it.

Yes, Wonder Woman fought in WW II. When the injured Steve Trevor was brought to Paradise Island, Queen Hippolyta decreed that the strongest Amazon would return the unconscious soldier back to the world of men. All the Amazons were allowed to compete except Diana, the Queen&#39;s daughter. A masked Amazon won the competion, only to reveal that it was Diana. Diana escorted Steve back to the world of men and decided to stick around. Seeing the the Allies were in the right with the war against the Axis, and never one to run from a fight, Wonder Woman did what she could to help win hte war. Once again during DC&#39;s revisionist history (Crisis&#39;, Zero Hours, what ever) the Story was changed to make it so that it was actually Hippolyta who did all of that. It all truely just depends on when you started reading the comic. (On a different note, someone said that Supermans powers came from sunlight, and that he would be weaker if he was in a cave or underground. That&#39;s not exactly right. Supes&#39; powers come from the radiation of a yellow sun. The radiation would be able to travel through the earth, just as he can. He doesn&#39;t have to have direct exposure to the sun to have superpowers.) And with this post I&#39;m Offically a Fanboy and a Geek. :-P